Since October 1st, I’ve had over 7,000 visitors to this website, nearly 6,000 of them unique. In that time I’ve had nearly 20,000 pageviews. Most all of it has been for this post. I’ve probably gotten more email than I’ve ever gotten for anything else I’ve written. I’ve gotten mostly support, which I greatly appreciate.
The post has gotten prominent mentions on sites as diverse as The Remnant and The American Conservative. NBC news even interviewed me just a few minutes ago about Pope Francis. It’s very surreal what happens when you write from your gut.
Add that to the third of a million views and 100K Facebook shares for my recent post at CatholicVote.org about furloughed priests facing arrest, and I’m a bit stunned. I was even quoted extensively in a story that wound up on the Drudge Report.
Writing is and has been my first love. Writing about controversial topics is especially interesting, because I love good discussion and debate and the idea that maybe I’m changing minds and making a positive difference in a world gone mad. For the past few years, I’ve tried to keep controversy off these pages in an attempt to give it a more professional focus. The net result has been that I don’t write here much anymore. I’m a man driven by his passions, go figure.
So I’m taking those barriers down. I’m going to write here about what I want to write about. Sometimes, it’ll be technology or science fiction. Sometimes it’ll be about the craft of writing. Sometimes politics. Sometimes religion. Sometimes, my kids. Because writing about things you care about connects with people in ways that writing what you think you should write never does.
That said, I have a confession: I’m absolutely terrible at time management. I’d rather be writing — and talking about whatever I’ve just written with all of you — than doing just about anything else, and that means lots of reading too. But I have a business to help run, children to homeschool, and at any given time a sink that’s probably full of dishes and a laundry room with big drifts of dirty clothes. I don’t have a lot of time.
So, for those of you inclined to pray, I’m asking for your prayers. Please ask the Man upstairs help me to get organized and get my priorities straight. Ask Him to help me to fulfil the duties of my state in life according to His will, and to find the time when those tasks are done to do this thing I love so much I do it for free (or cheap) when I really need to be putting revenue-generating activities first.
And please be patient with me. I really do hope to be writing here more often again, but I have to cut off the sense of urgency and the need to be prolific at the knees. It’s keeping me from what I need to be doing.
I understand, everything takes time and writing can take a lot of one’s time.
Dear Steve,
Your post on Pope Francis was inspired and shared by me to all of my conservative Catholic friends/family along with my faithful evangelical friends/family who have been shocked by the crap flowing out of Rome these past six months.
My prayers are with you and with all who see the truth (and don’t just yet) in regards to the insanity of this papacy…May God have mercy on us and shorten this trial!
Eric
P.S. Below is an email I sent out to friends last week to try to highlight the ill-logic of some of Francis’ ‘neo-con’ defenders.
* * * * * *
After six months of observing closely, I think I finally have the ‘Francis Shuffle’ down…well at least I’ll give it my best shot.
In his latest misunderstood interview, His Holiness made the quite harmless comment that the greatest evils imperiling the world today are youth unemployment and elderly loneliness.
As a recovering paleo-Catholic , my former persona would’ve immediately stiffened up and shouted out “CRAZY TALK…IMPOSSIBLE!!…How could he say such a silly thing!” Ah….but those days are no more for yours truly, for I have taken my cue from others far more insightful than my former self, and have learned to just RELAX and let the Spirit guide me to understand what Francis’ true intention is with such a comment!
For you see, it was not Francis who was being silly, but me in my forgetfulness of the fact that our current Vicar of Christ is a brilliant Jesuit. And as any faithful Catholic (or Protestant enemy) knows, Jesuits have been outmaneuvering the enemies of the Church for 500 years!
This is the missing Rosetta stone to Francis’ sermonettes, numerous ‘off-the cuff’ comments, as well as his much publicized interviews. This particular quote (one can work from dozens) highlights the sheer tactical brilliance of this loyal son of Ignatius.
For the fallen world (lapsed Catholics and apostate liberal Catholics included) blindly took the bait that the new Bishop of Rome, like themselves, thinks primarily in socio-economic/materialistic terms. Instead, what really has happened is that Francis has (or, most certainly will, very soon!) craftily sprung his ingenious trap on the unsuspecting enemies of God and His Church.
And what you say is the trap? Well, it’s Francis’ desire to teach the world and his flock of the TRUE EVIL that is endangering millions of souls and civilizations, through the clever means of first getting the world’s attention AND THEN providing them with THE ANSWER to what most heavily weighs on their hearts.
THE ANSWER is of course is what all faithful/Paleo Catholics have been ‘obsessing’ about for what seems like forever….ABORTION, CONTRACEPTION and HOMOSEXUALITY (the big mortal/moral sexual sins of our age)!!
For clearly, the reason so many elderly are left alone and forgotten is that they are either ‘Gay’ (although due to their lifestyle they rarely make it to the ‘elderly’ stage) with no progeny to care for them or former contracepting/aborting couples who have drastically reduced the number of children who might be able to provide them love and attention in their waning years.
Also, in the case of developed countries like in former Christian Europe, social commitments to an aging population along with widespread use of abortion/contraception are choking/shrinking their respective economies and making it nearly impossible for youth to obtain ‘living wage’ employment (due to wealth transfers to the elderly), creating a vicious negative economic feedback loop.
So there you have it, a perfect example of the wily Argentine Jesuit, giving examples of the biggest evils (material) of our time in order to get the low information herd’s attention so as to then teach them about the TRUE evils (moral) lying behind the material ones!
There, I think I did it…the ‘Francis Shuffle’! It wasn’t as hard as I had imagined. In fact, I’m kind of excited to think of all the future opportunities Francis will afford me to perfect this new and groovy way of understanding his brilliant ways!
My Dear Steve…I found your comments absolutely fascinating and if you have a moment PLEASE let me have your own comment on a matter of LIFE AND DEATH to the world population as follows:
“You’ve got cancer” the doctor said… rimless glasses quivering at the end of his nose… a lick of hair held in place by beads of perspiration starting their downwards journey…
The words were like stainless steel blades slicing through bloodied liver…
“We’ll have to see what’s next”…
Only sounds in the room were the clock on the desk tick tocking away… creaking of the leather seats protesting their burdens… faint hiss of traffic through the thick musty window drapes ‘shushuring’ on their way…and Monty gasping for breath…
“what did you say” ? …
“you’ve a brain tumour “ he replied… we’ll have to wait and see”
Only yesterday (only !) he was treating Juan Carlos King of spain…
(memories of the body guards clattering walkie talkies still in his mind…
“What the…?” he thought “…I still have so much work to do”…
The day had started well, azure blue skies, full of birds singing… “welcome to the rest of your life”!
But as usual he would find the answers… He believed that life offered more than one could imagine. He knew that there was a universal life force, an inexplicable natural sounrce of life which played a vital role in health and healing.
“SAHASRARA”… Sanscrit for the Pineal, one of the endocrine glands who’s function according to conventional medicine is’nt clear (ref Philip Evans CBE MD FRCP Consultant Emeritus,Guy,s Hospital,London…Family Medical Reference Book) but as we will see………………………………………….…………… (to be continued
Huh?
I’m just happy you’re blogging again. :o)
I lament that you are taking down “those barriers”. Blogs that boast of having no “barriers” easily become cesspools of gossip and paranoia. Yes, that attracts a lot of attention, but is it good attention? Is it healthy? I don’t think so. If that’s how you want to define yourself, be warned: the sensational culture is fickle. I hope you find your way back one day.
PS: doesn’t it strike you as shallow that some folks would leave the church over some things Pope Francis says in an interview? I presume that you are writing yourself into this crowd. The pope is not the problem here.